When It All Becomes Too Much
by Henka
Summary: LP. One shot. She pushed him away first, so why does he still feel guilty? Extended from Caramelo’s Wasteland.


**When It All Becomes Too Much**

**By:** Sari

**Summary:** LP. One shot. She pushed him away first, so why does he still feel guilty? Extended from Caramelo's _Wasteland_.

**Disclaimer:** Nope, not mine. I swear.

"_I don't need you saving me Lucas, I can do it myself."_

Peyton's words seem to echo in my head and I can't help but grip the steering wheel harder because what she says _hurts_. It twists that knife just a little bit deeper and makes the wound turn into a gaping hole and before I know it I'm sobbing in the front seat of my car still parked in front of her house.

And, I'm hoping that she'll get up and limp slowly towards the truck with tears in her eyes and an apology on her lips but even I know that's wishful thinking. Peyton's had enough of "being the other woman," although I didn't even know I was doing it until that day.

But it isn't fair, not after Keith died and Jimmy shot himself and everything is this massive whirl of emotions and I don't know where to stop or where I should go and how I should deal I just want everything to STOP.

Or maybe, I can go back and rewind time back to the couple of months when there was just peace around us. No love triangles or marriages or shootings. Just a perfect group of perfect people with a little drama tossed in on the side. I liked the days when Nathan and I were still brothers and not just friends who occasionally threw each other to the ground when we needed it most. I liked it when Brooke and I flirted, and Peyton and I had deep conversations and Haley was still my best friend, not the singer who came back.

But everything ultimately comes back to me, sitting in a car, parked in front of Peyton's house like a stalker sobbing and sniffling into the steering wheel still waiting with a fleeting hope that I hear her limping steps and the funny thing is that I do.

And, for a second I think I'm crazy. I've been hearing voices lately. Keith's voice and Brooke's voice and people telling me everything should be okay when it isn't and it probably never will be again. But it's her voice that I want to hear, and it's her voice I do hear along with the tapping on the window and the insistent kicking she's probably been doing for far too long since she looks kind of annoyed.

So, I roll down the window and I wait for more words to cut through my skin and eat at my heart, eventually tearing up the little bit of my soul I have left. But the funny thing is, it doesn't and I look up at her confused only to be met with piercing green eyes that lock my own blue ones in her gaze and just seem to beg "take me for who I am."

I smile, slightly, hesitantly, the balls in her court. She had poured out her heart to me and I had pushed her away, and even though I feel guilty I just wait for her to say those words that I want her to say because maybe now I know the right answer. And she does, hesitantly and defensively but she says them. And this time I know what to say, this time I'm not afraid.

Keith died, Jimmy died, Peyton almost died, my _friends_ almost died. Death teaches you that life is short and the time you have shouldn't be taken for granted. So for once I want to do the right thing, and not the right thing for everyone else but the right thing for _me_. I saw what being selfless does to you. It gets you shot in the heart. I won't be buried next to my uncle, I won't have my gravestone say "he was a good man, a selfless man, but in the end he died unfulfilled."

So when Peyton tells me again "we have a connection Luke, don't do this." I don't. I take her hand in mine and smile.

Maybe we can make it this time. When it all becomes too much, you have to learn to pick up the pieces and move on. At least this time I have her by my side, and that prospect made the road seem that much brighter.

**A/N:** I decided to try out stream of consciousness type writing and I think it turned out pretty successful. This was just Lucas's POV after the events that happened in Caramelo's one shot _Wasteland_. Go read it, great one shot.


End file.
